Imagine being this ignorant of the console modding scene.
Significantly smaller than the PC modding scene, for obvious reasons. And most console mod work is derived from things on PC.
Wrong. The modder in question was working on FiveM, a mod made freely available to the public, when Take-Two used thuggish tactics to intimidate him at his home.
End of the day, free or not, they're still working with IP they don't have ownership of. It's their risk to do so and the owners of that IP have the right to enforce their ownership. You want to make something with that IP, get consent from the owners ahead of time.
Before I'd of been way more sympathetic to the modders but in light on stuff happening with AI and the such, I can see the issue among people with ownership and hard work poured into their properties, having them accessed and used freely without their consent by others in very public and/or commercial ways. It's unfair to the original creators and/or those who own the legal rights to those properties.
And, this is all stuff within a luxury market, an entertainment market. Like if you want to do this stuff, try making a mod that helps people with Parkinson's or bad vision. I can support that because usually the services and stuff people have to pay for that stuff is extremely costly and those may be things people need to live a better, more functional life.
Does it now? That's interesting, I seem to have forgotten about all the times the developers and publishers of the Half-Life, Battlefield, Elder Scrolls, Total War, Darkest Dungeon, Witcher, Dark Souls, Mount & Blade, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or literally most of the other hundreds of other game franchises on PC decided to crack down on community mods. Oh, that's right, they didn't! In fact, many of them fostered the modding scene among their playbase by providing modding toolkits or featuring the work of modders in their community highlights.
Well that's the choice of those companies, and I guess they were happy with what those modders were doing. In many cases they do that in order to eye prospective hires officially into the company, or work with those modders in a more official capacity. Which I can respect.
But just because some companies do that, doesn't mean others are obligated to. Take-Two doesn't seem like that type of company and that's a perfectly fine choice if that's how they feel. It doesn't make them more "evil" than companies that choose to work with modders.
Then why do R*/T2 have such a hostile attitude towards modders? Could it be that they hate the idea of modders providing more compelling content for free to the community than their own predatorily-priced microtransactions? No, surely that can't be it, for R*/T2 are definitely not greedy as all fuck.
Again, it's their IP, they're the owners. It's their choice. If you don't like it, fine, but they aren't obligated to bend over backwards and support modders because some people feel it's the "right thing to do". Modders aren't entitled rights to access a game; their freedoms with modding are at the mercy of whoever owns the rights to the content being modded.
Your corporate bootlicking defense is weak. Try a different tack.
It's not corporate bootlicking; it's being an adult and accepting the reality of the market. If someone makes something, sinks time & money into it, and gets their copyrights and trademarks for it, then they're able to enforce that ownership against anyone they feel infringes upon it.
If the person being targeted feels they're in the right, they can hire a lawyer and take the case to court. Just know the costs and time that will entail. If you want to freely mod games (either at no charge or for profit) and not worry about companies knocking at your door, you better make sure that game's a non-commercial product, has a license allowing that type of modding, or is so old that copyrights likely haven't been re-filed or the owners of the IP rights simply don't care anymore.
